In the years following World War I, the Weimar Republic passed strict gun control laws in an attempt to comply with the Versailles Treaty of 1919 – laws that required the surrender of all guns to government.
“The laws remained in effect until 1928, when the German parliament relaxed gun restrictions and put into effect a strict firearm-licensing scheme. These licensing regulations foreshadowed Adolph Hitler’s rise to power.”
In her 2011 book, Professor of Criminal Justice Dyan McGuire wrote that “it is frequently argued that these laws, which resulted in the confiscation of weapons not belonging to supporters of the Nazis, rendered disfavoured groups like the Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, Poles, and their potential allies defenseless.”
